Entertainment

Moby on growing up an artist in the 'old' New York

Richard Melville Hall, more commonly known as Moby, has a lot of musical accomplishments under his belt. He's one of only a handful credited with popularizing electro in the 1990s, he's sung with Bowie, he's made a James Bond theme song — the list goes on. Now, with more than 20 million albums sold worldwide (including a live release that dropped earlier this year), he's shifted to a different artistic medium: Photography.

The change, which may surprise fans, seems natural when you consider Moby's background: Born in Harlem, he grew up around visual art and artists. Although he relocated to Los Angeles in 2011, attributing his move to the changing face of the city he once knew, New York continues to be a strong influence on his work.

Mashable met the "Porcelain" man himself at the Emmanuel Fremin Gallery — which is displaying his latest exhibit, innocents, through December 31. We spoke with the artist about everything from his photography career, to his opinions on the "new" New York.

You were a visual artist before you were ever a musician. Who first exposed you to photography?

My mom was a painter, one uncle was a sculptor and my grandmother worked with watercolor. My other uncle was this esteemed New York Times photographer, so I was raised around a lot of artists. But we were all very poor — I was actually on welfare and food stamps until I was 20. So when I was growing up, we could only afford two art books. One was an Edward Steichen book and it had these photos from around 1890-1930.

Because that was really all we had, I went through that book over and over and over again. I became completely obsessed with photography; Photography takes the world — an exposure of one-one-hundredth of a second — adds a bunch of chemicals, and gives you this powerful picture. In the presence of photography, I was just in awe.

When did you start taking photos of your own?

My uncle — the New York Times photographer — I just thought he had the weirdest, coolest job in the world. And I remember this so clearly, because we didn't have much in the way of nice things. It was Christmas morning and I came down — I was 10, maybe 11 — and my whole family, my aunts, and uncles and my grandparents, were sitting there looking at me with this very expectant, excited look. And I was like, "What's going on?"

Then they handed me this present that weighed differently than anything I'd ever held, because I was only used to toys. I opened it up, and it was my uncle's Nikon F camera. I had never seen anything that nice in my life. It was beautiful … all manual. It had even been to Vietnam, but he just didn't use it anymore. So they thought, why not give it to me? It was a very aspirational gift, because I clearly wasn't a photographer at the time. It's kind of like giving a Porsche to someone who doesn't have a drivers license.

So you started taking pictures right away?

Because we were very poor, I saved up money and bought film. I saved up money and bought paper and developing chemicals. I always had to be saving, and shoot so sparingly. I would shoot, like, an image a day, and really think about the pictures and stage them. It's funny because I have friends that just grew up shooting digitally; because it costs nothing, you can shoot shoot a lot. For one image, they'll shoot 200 times. And I still shoot like a poor kid who’s saving money for film.

You grew up in and around New York City. How has that influenced you, as both a photographer and a musician?

The New York that I grew up with — and I don't mean this in a critical way — but it's gone. When I was growing up here in the '70s, '80s and '90s, it was a place anyone could live. The barriers to entry had nothing to do with money, and everything to do with squalor and danger. So in the '80s, anyone who wanted to could live in New York. It was dirt cheap. But you took your life in your hands and accepted it was filthy. And as a result, artists, writers, musicians and the like flocked to New York. The rent would be $300 a month for a 1,000-square-foot loft. And there was this creative culture here that was just amazing.

The economic reality of New York now is that the only people who can afford to live here are hedge fund managers and people who get a lot of money from their parents. I don't mean to malign hedge fund managers or kids with trust funds, but the amazing environment for creativity that was New York is gone.

And I had to leave when I got sober. New York is a great place to be a drunk, but not such a great place to be sober.

The West Village is one area where we really see gentrification.

Bleecker Street between Sixth and Seventh ... it used to be this crummy little strip of condom stores and whatever else. Now it’s like Marc Jacobs, Marc Jacobs, Marc Jacobs.

And I still love New York. It’s still this dynamic, wonderful place, but just maybe not for the broke artists it used to be a dynamic, wonderful place for.

When I was first moving to New York, my mom was convinced I would get robbed. A lot of people still remember it as this really dangerous place.

Just give your mom the third season of Sex and the City and say, "This is New York, Mom. The expensive land of cupcakes."

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